Although Apple and Google officially sit out the biggest tech trade show of the year, their platforms are well represented by the third parties that create thousands of products for them. This year it feels like Microsoft is simply being left out.

Windows has virtually no presence in the two biggest things to hit computing in a long time, and it's starting to show. Microsoft may not be in trouble - but Windows is.

The whole point of this small article had nothing to do with technical merits. It was basically a short story about how the author wanted to start an open source project, so he used tools that the open source community appreciates. Makes sense to me. Problem is is that many Windows programmers like myself don't work on open source projects, so using .NET being as technically capable on Windows that it is makes perfect sense.

The whole point of this small article had nothing to do with technical merits. It was basically a short story about how the author wanted to start an open source project, so he used tools that the open source community appreciates. Makes sense to me.

Okay, and then:

Problem is is that many Windows programmers like myself don't work on open source projects, so using .NET being as technically capable on Windows that it is makes perfect sense.

It doesn't require you to work on open source projects to be involved in FOSS PLs or utility software. I work and create software based on VB.net, but I always love to use open source tools as much possible, even I want to REPLACE VB.net itself, because that thing will only run on Windows, I want my software to run on any platform, so I experimented with Lazarus/FPC/Pascal. If you, being a Windows programmer and not a Systems Administrator at your work, then you might have no access to your servers, and doesn't require FOSS tools.

But also as a System Administrator, I love FOSS tools, I can't live without them, on Windows, utilities like WinSCP, putty, rsync, PostgreSQL for db, I am also experimenting with Git, and many others. So, if you live only in Windows and your whole programming life is for Windows Desktop and Windows Server, then you do not need any of the things I mentioned and you've greatly missed great software tools by just relying on dot net alone.